Is the Prosperity Gospel Slipping into Your Life – What is the Gospel?

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We have to be careful that we are not veering into sort of a low -key prosperity gospel.

Welcome to Andrew Rappaport's Rapp Report, where we provide biblical interpretations and applications.

This is a ministry of striving for eternity and the Christian podcast community. For more content or to request a speaker for your church, go to strivingforeternity .org.

Well, I am Andrew Rappaport, your host of Andrew Rappaport's Rapp Report. This is a ministry of striving for eternity and heard on the

Christian podcast community, which also is a ministry of striving for eternity. Today, what

I'd like to do is talk about, well, one of my favorite topics, the gospel.

Because the gospel is under attack in so many ways, but many of the ways we do not even recognize it.

Because we think of the attacks that come from the gospel from outside of, well,

Christianity. And there's plenty of attacks that occur within Christianity.

And so, I want to address some of those things. But first, before we could do that, don't we need to really understand what the gospel is?

Because this too is something that many people do not understand. Many people don't have a right understanding of the gospel.

So, what is the gospel? Well, let me give it to you in one word. Yes, one single word to explain the gospel.

It is the theological term, imputation. Now, the word imputation, maybe we don't always understand it, but it has the idea of basically our sin being placed upon Jesus Christ and His righteousness being placed upon us.

This is actually a legal term, and we see this clearest in 2

Corinthians 5 .21, which states, for our sake

He made Him to be sin, who knew no sin, that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.

I love that passage. Think through what it's saying. It is saying that, first off, our sin was laid upon Jesus Christ.

Our sin, the things we've done, the pride we have, was laid on Christ, and He paid that fine.

He actually became sin. He became the payment of sin in our behalf, and in exchange, this should boggle your mind, in exchange we get the righteousness of God.

We do not deserve that, but that's what we receive. We receive the righteousness of God, something that as sinners we should be amazed at.

And Christ, even more amazing, takes the consequence of our sin, takes our sin, and lays it upon Himself as if He, the sinless one, was the sin, and He paid the fine for us.

That should blow your mind as a Christian. So, the word imputation, according to scriptural usage, denotes the attributing of something to a person, or charging of one with anything, or setting of something to one's account.

In the Old Testament idea, we get this in the animal sacrifices, that there would be a sacrifice, there were an animal died, but what you did is the sin that you committed, the cost of it, the payment of it, was laid upon the animal, it was imputed to the animal, and the animal paid the consequence.

Well, that is what Christ did for us. This is a central doctrine in Christianity.

In fact, I would argue it is the most central doctrine, because in here we end up seeing that the fact that you and I can be

Christians, this is one thing that separates Christianity from every other religion, is the proper understanding of the doctrine of imputation, that Christ took our sin upon Himself, and gives us

His righteousness, something that sets us apart, because there's no works are involved in there. It's not by human works, which every false religion would teach.

You can look at this idea in Romans 5, 12, and following to the end of that chapter, where it says that here

Adam sinned, and because Adam sinned, we all inherit sin. That sin is inherited to each of us, but the consequence of the sin nature is imputed on us now.

Now, we're born with the sin nature, but though there's that Adam, we can look at the second

Adam, who will come and by what He has done, He will set us free, and we can be freed by His gift.

Now, what I want to do in this episode is to address this issue, because we see that the gospel we often think of is only being attacked from those in the world.

We see this in, I just recently watched or heard of the Democrat debates, where they have someone that's a practicing homosexual, and he's on stage, and they ask him about his

Christianity. That's right. You know, it's never an issue for the Democrats to talk about their quote -unquote

Christian faith unless, of course, they're accused of being a Muslim or something like that, but no, they'll pretend that they're

Christian, and they'll speak about that, but it's never that I can remember come up in a debate, but if someone's practicing homosexuality, well, yeah, let's talk about it.

Why? Because, well, that is the world attacking Christianity, attacking the gospel, because he's giving a different gospel message, and what the world wants to do is water down the gospel message so that people don't know the true gospel.

This is what you're going to constantly see over and over and over again from the world, because they don't want the gospel message heard, and so they don't mind if a false gospel is presented.

If you present a gospel that just believe in Jesus and your life will get better, but there's no repentance of sin, there's no turning to Christ, well, hey, they're okay with that.

This is what you end up seeing in much of what is attacking Christianity from outside, and there's some very dangerous wolves that attack it from within, and then there's some of us who attack it in a different way, and we're unaware of it most of the time, and so let's start with those from outside.

We can recognize, as I mentioned, how the world is attacking the gospel of Jesus Christ.

We can see how the world wants to deny what Romans 5, 12 and following says.

Let me read this to you so we get the context, but this is the idea that we're all born with a sin nature, that this sin is passed on to us.

People want to deny that because they want to say we're born neutral, we're good, it's just our environment, it's just chemical reactions that are causing us to do these things.

Well, that's not what God says. This is Romans 5, 12 and following. Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned.

For sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law, yet death reigned from Adam to Moses even over those whose sinning was not like the transgressions of Adam, who was a type of the one to come.

But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if many died through one's man's trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of the one man,

Jesus Christ, abounded for many. And the free gift is not like the result of the one man's sin.

For the judgment following the trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brought justification.

For if because one's man's trespass death reigned through one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man,

Jesus Christ. Though as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so the one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men.

For as by one man's disobedience, the many were made sinners.

So by the one man's obedience, the many will be made righteous.

Now the law came to increase the trespass, but where sin increases, grace abounds all the more so that as sin reigns in death, grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ, our

Lord. That's just tremendous to think about. And the world wants to say, no, no, we're not sinners.

We're good people. No, they're not. And they don't want to recognize that fact.

They don't want to recognize the fact that through Adam, we all have a federal headship. And if you deny that federal headship in Adam, then you end up in this passage showing that you deny the federal headship in Christ.

You can't deny one without denying the other. And this is essential to understand when we look at the doctrine of imputation.

When we look at this, we realize that just as our sin was imputed because of what

Adam did, so our righteousness is imputed because of what Christ did, that second Adam.

We must understand this. But there is a danger to the gospel that we see that is a threat that comes to this doctrine.

What we end up seeing here is that there are many who want to walk in a way of attacking the gospel over and over.

We could see this from those outside. We see this from Islam and Roman Catholicism and Jehovah Witnesses and Mormonism, all of these false religions where they want to deny essential things like the deity of Christ.

And we end up seeing that there's many Christians who end up wanting to try to share the gospel and they attempt to placate these people by, well,

I just don't want to mention things that may make them upset like hell or the wrath of God because those may be a turnoff.

They want to kind of water down the gospel. And this is where we start to see people that will start to attack from within.

Because the Roman Catholic, they're an enemy to the gospel because they're going to say that if you look at their they call that anathema, a curse.

You can never be saved. Islam would say if you believe that God is three, you're accursed.

If you believe Jesus is God, you can never go to paradise in Islam. These are attacks from out without.

But now let's look at the attacks from within because that is even more that we end up seeing.

Because we see these people that want to try to evangelize all these attackers from without. And in their attempt to water down the gospel, they take away the essentials of the gospel.

If you remove the wrath of God, if you remove the sin of man, how can you present the true gospel message?

The true gospel message is this idea of imputation. And if you remove our sin being laid upon Christ, then what is the good news that we could become the righteousness of Christ?

There's not a big deal there because we weren't that bad after all. No, we must understand that the one thing that people do when they water down the gospel is for a very simple reason.

Nobody waters down the gospel because they care about that person's soul.

They water down the gospel because they want that the person to like them more than God.

They water down the gospel because they want to be liked. They want to be patted on the back and appreciated.

What does that matter for eternity? That you get a pat on the back for a temporal time, that someone may like you but spend eternity in a lake of fire because you didn't share a biblical gospel message.

This is the problem that we end up seeing so often. We think about the gospel, the thing that should enrich our soul as a

Christian and cause us to want to share the gospel. If you read in 2

Corinthians 5, it says that the love of Christ compels us to share the gospel. Why?

Because of what it says in Romans chapter 5. Let me read in Romans 5, 6 to 11. This is what

Paul says by the inspiration of spirit. For while we were still weak at the time,

Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person, though perhaps for a good person one would dare to die.

But God showed his love for us that while we were still sinners,

Christ died for us. Since therefore we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God.

For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his son, much more now that we are reconciled shall we be saved by his life.

More than that, we also rejoice in God through our

Lord Jesus Christ through whom we have now received reconciliation.

This is the thing that must be key in our thinking is the fact that justification comes through Christ and we can sit and rejoice in the fact that we were sinners, we were his enemies.

And while we were still his enemy, he died for us. That should captivate our thinking and there is something that we have to have that captivating our thinking because there are more dangers to the gospel.

You see there's dangers that are internal that are within those that claim to be

Christians. You have those who argue for a gospel message that says, hey, if you believe in Jesus, he's going to give you everything you want.

You want health? You got it. You want wealth? You got it. You want anything?

You just have to name it and claim it. You just have to picture as Joel Osteen says, just picture it in your mind and tell

God what you want. He says, you want a big house? You just have to pray to God and tell him you want one and you got to believe he's going to give it to you.

Well, that may work for a con artist like Joel Osteen, but the reality is that's not going to work in Iran and Iraq where Christians are having to be put to death for the sake of believing in Christ.

You notice Joel Osteen doesn't go to those places to preach the gospel. Oh no, because his message doesn't fly there, does it?

No, these are attacks you have. You have men like Benny Hinn, Creflo Dollar, many others who will preach a message that says that God will give you everything you want.

What do you think is the focus of that gospel? Man, selfishness.

That's a gospel of self, not a gospel of God. You see everything I've read to you from the scriptures, what do you see?

You see that that is a message where God is lifted up on high, not you and I. No, we're the sinners that are undeserving of God's grace.

We're those who are his enemy and yet he died for us, for you and I that know

Christ. You see, a very simple way of noticing that the problem that many of these quote unquote

Christians have in their message is their message is a message of self. It is no different than what

Satan proposed to Eve in the garden. It is a message of self, that you could be like God, knowing good from evil, that you could be like God.

That's not just in Mormonism, my friends. No, many of these prosperity gospel preachers, they preach that you are a little

God, that God somehow owes it to you, that he is going to give you whatever you want because you must be superior.

God has a man -shaped hole in his heart and he just needed you. That's really what many are preaching.

God does not need you. He does not. God created man, at least according to what he says in Romans chapter 9, he says that part of the reason he created man and allowed man to sin is so he could show some attributes of his that can't be shown any other way, like his wrath, his longsuffering, his love, his grace, his mercy, those things couldn't be shown if man never sinned.

He says in Romans 9 verse 22, what if God desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction in order that we may make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy which he has prepared beforehand for glory.

You see, God prepared this. He knew what he was doing. But a message that is one of selfishness, well, a selfish gospel dies with the person and lands a person in eternity without God.

And so what you see is you end up seeing that we must be aware of the fact that God is the supreme one.

God is the one that any gospel message that we see must, must have that as its central thing, that God is at the center.

A man -centered gospel always has man at the center. And we have so many gospel messages that are teaching that.

But you and I, even as believers, we threaten the gospel as well.

Yes, we have the Benny Hinns and all those guys, but you and I that are in good, solid churches, we too threaten the doctrine of imputation in our lives.

We say we believe that the gospel is by grace alone, and it is.

But we live our life as if it is performance -based. We live our life as if works are necessary for salvation.

Now, I know many will disagree with me, but I know I'm not alone. In fact, on the recent

Theology Gals podcast, they were doing a Q &A, and in their Q &A, this came up.

And I think that they explained this well, but this is what I want to address, this issue of the way you and I end up affecting the gospel.

And so, after this break, I want to play a clip from Theology Gals, and then

I'm going to lead into a message from there, because I think there is something very important you and I must be aware of, is that we threaten the gospel in our own lives.

We do this when we think we need to make up for things we've done wrong. We think we deserve the gospel, and we think it's just so casual in our lives, or we don't think we're good enough at all.

And I want to come back from the break and start with the very first one that I mentioned. How is

Jesus both God and man? And a slew of other questions you will be able to answer if you get

Andrew Rappaport's new book, What Do We Believe? It will help you a ton.

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Striving to make today an eternal day for the glory of God. There was a lot of emphasis on these spiritual disciplines, especially the quiet time.

It is good to study your Bible and you ought to, and you ought to read your Bible and you ought to pray.

I remember as a teenager, if I didn't read my Bible first thing in the morning, I walked around all day feeling crushed with guilt.

Like I didn't, I'm not a good Christian. I didn't do what I was supposed to in reading my

Bible. I'm not going to have a good day now. There was this very odd pressure. I mean, that is really, really how

I felt. I remember when I was single, I got up every morning and I spent an hour and a half reading my

Bible and studying and praying before I started my day. And then I got married and I still had that time every day that I put aside.

And then I had kids. And now my time was interrupted or maybe five minutes here and five minutes there.

And things very much changed. And now my time is very different with my children being almost all grown.

Life changes. And how should we see this? Because God is not going to take away some of his love for you because you didn't do your morning devotions.

Let me say that first. And that's almost how I felt. Like I'm not going to have as blessed a day because I didn't do my part this morning.

How can we think about this with wisdom? I grew up with a similar feeling that you were describing,

Colleen, a similar kind of environment where I can recall hearing pastors say yesterday's quiet time isn't good enough for today.

Entire sermons being preached on the value of the quiet time and how you need to do that every day.

I can remember it being preached that it needs to be morning. If you're saving it till the end of the day, you're missing the boat.

Because just as you said, if you get up and do your quiet time in the morning, you're going to have a good day. If you don't do it, well, hey, we can't be responsible for what kind of day is coming your way because you did not do your quiet time.

I remember hearing in little ladies groups talking about, I had a rotten day yesterday and I got to the end of the day and I realized

I hadn't done my quiet time and that really affected me. And now I am not saying that reading the word in the morning doesn't orient me properly towards God and help me with my attitude throughout the day.

It certainly does. But we have to be careful that we are not veering into sort of a low -key prosperity gospel there that what you do is have your quiet time and then what

God does is spits out the good day for you. That's put the quarter in, get your gumball out.

That's really not how it works. Well, I agree. That is not how it works. But how many of us, when we think about Benny Hinn and Kenneth Hagin and these other names that we mentioned, we recognize them as false teachers.

We recognize that they have a different gospel message. We think about that and say they have a problem and yet we don't think that we might be actually slipping in some of the same prosperity gospel message into our day, into the way we live our life.

We create this performance -based sanctification. So we live as if we're works -based salvation, as if the way the prosperity gospel is that if you give enough money, you get enough back.

And if you do good things, you're going to get back. You have to make sure you sow that seed.

That's the prosperity gospel. That's not the biblical gospel. That's not the message of Jesus Christ.

And I think that there is a danger we have when Christians act as if their salvation is a performance -based issue.

Your salvation is not based upon your works.

Neither is your sanctification. Are there works in sanctification? Yes, there are.

But we have to recognize that works are not going to pursue the way that we think of it sometimes, the way that, as even the ladies on Theology Now said,

Angela said, well, it is almost slipping in of the prosperity gospel. You know, this didn't work for Israel and it won't work for us.

You know, in Israel, we could read in Romans 9, verse 30 and following, this is what Paul said.

What shall we say then? That Gentiles who did not pursue righteousness have attained it?

That is, a righteousness that is by faith? But that Israel who pursued a law that would lead to righteousness did not succeed in reaching that law?

Why? Because they did not pursue it by faith.

But as if based on works, they have stumbled over the stumbling stone.

And this is what we end up seeing. Exactly what Paul is saying. Many of us are stumbling over our faith and we're living in such a way that we really ought not live.

We're living in this performance -based mindset that gets us trapped into thinking that somehow

I have to do my devotions, not because I love Christ, not because I want to know more about Christ, but because I want to make sure

I have a good day. Because I want to make sure that things go my way. No, that is a wrong motivation.

I understand there are times we don't feel like reading the Bible. We don't feel like sitting in prayer.

It's just a bad day. You know, I've had some health issues recently and they've caused me to where I haven't been able to do what

I've wanted to do. And there are times like that. But there's times where we do have to kind of force ourselves to getting into scriptures.

And yet what I think we find is that for many, they take this mindset much of like Colleen and Angela mentioned, much like I've seen in my own life and maybe in yours as well, that we end up having a bad day and we think, oh, it's because I didn't do my devotions this morning.

You know, maybe I should have done more. Oh, wow. That's why everything's going bad.

Well, think about that. Is that really what Christ would say in scripture? Do you see a scripture that says, if you don't do your devotions that morning, oops.

I mean, there is a time where, and sometimes, and maybe I'll do this again sometimes, but I used to put onto social media and ask the question, if you haven't been on your face before God or in God's book, what are you doing on Facebook?

And if you are unwilling to share the good news of Christ, then what are you doing sharing about Fox News?

You see, the reality is those things are much easier for us to do. It is much easier to be on social media or watching news and sharing political views, much easier than talking about the things of God and focusing on things of God.

Why is that though? I think the reason is, is because we really forget what it is of the doctrine of imputation.

And so for many of us, we live as if we need to make up for things we've done wrong.

It becomes a works -based thing, and we don't appreciate what

Christ did for us, what the gospel message actually is. We make the mistake that Paul makes, and we see this in Philippians 3, from 3 down to verse 10, where he says, for we are the circumcised who worship by the

Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus, and put no confidence in the flesh, though I myself have reason for confidence in the flesh.

Also, if anyone else thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh,

I have more. Circumcised on the eighth day of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a

Hebrew of Hebrews, as to the law, a Pharisee, as to zeal, a persecutor of the church, as to righteousness under the law, blameless.

But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ.

Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing

Christ Jesus, my Lord. For his sake,

I have suffered the loss of all things and counted them as rubbish, in order that I might gain

Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith, that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible,

I may obtain the resurrection from the dead. Do you hear that in Paul?

Do you hear the fact that there's a struggle with works? That people were saying, look,

I've done this, I've done this, and they're claiming it works. And he's saying, I claim it. I can have more, more than all of you. But it's all rubbish.

It's all worthless compared to the surpassing knowledge of Christ.

That is the focus that we need to think about.

And this is the issue that so many miss, because we live as if with this performance -based, ritual -based sanctification.

Now, sanctification is different than that regeneration, right? We get saved, that's regeneration, that point we become a

Christian, we become right with God, we get that righteousness. But after that, yes, there are works involved, but those works we do are motivated from a love of Christ, as you just heard

Paul talk about. It's out of love that we do these things. It's not because of the fact that we think we owe it to God to do these things.

No. We are motivated by love. And this is the thing we must recognize.

We must recognize what the doctrine of imputation is, because our sin, all of it, was laid upon Christ.

Christ is not punishing us. Oh, you didn't do your devotions today. I'm going to send a car accident your way.

He doesn't do that. He said at the cross, it is finished, and our sin was paid for.

Do we get chastised? Yes, there are times we do things that God needs to correct us, but he does not punish us, those of us who know him, who are

Christian. And so, the first way that I think that we attack the doctrine of imputation and we have to recognize is this idea that we somehow think we have a performance -based gospel message or sanctification.

We live our life trying to do right by God to not earn salvation.

We know we can't earn salvation, but we try to do right by God to earn favor with him so we can get a good day or good health or money or whatever it is.

And that is slipping in a prosperity sanctification.

Oh, it may not be a prosperity gospel, but you think about it. What is the difference between that and the prosperity gospel?

Well, really, the prosperity gospel is all about doing right so God gives you.

Do these different things so God gives to you what you want. I remember a pastor, he had gotten a car and he was telling me how it was just, oh, this is

God's blessing on me, I got this car. He got this from this guy and the guy spent all this time fixing it up and he got such a deal and he felt so wonderful that he got this great deal.

He said, you know, God is blessing me because of how faithful I've been to him. And, you know, he blessed me with this car.

And I said, you know what? God blessed you even if that car turns out to be a lemon.

Turned out the car was a lemon. The guy was working on it to try and get it out the door so it would get to the guy's house in time for him to get the title over.

But within a few weeks, things started breaking down on that car and it was falling apart. What did he remember?

God still blessed him even when the car was a lemon. Even when trials come our way, that's

God's blessing in our life. We don't want to think about it that way. Oh, boy, I'll tell you this past couple of weeks has been horrific for me, my health.

It's been horrible. I've had the worst week probably of my entire life being in pain, not being able to walk, not being able to sleep.

And it was God's blessing in my life. Can you view things like that?

It took away some of the distractions of the busyness because I couldn't do stuff. And I got to just sit and spend time reading and praying because that was basically the only thing

I could do. And it was a blessing. It was a blessing because I drew closer to my

Lord in that time. Can you look at things like that and say, this is a blessing in my life?

Yes, everything's falling apart and it's a blessing in my life. Can you say that?

Because the reality is we don't do our devotions, try to earn favor with God.

You know, there's another way that we, I think, attack the doctrine of imputation in our sanctification.

It's when we think that we deserve the gospel. Maybe we grew up in a home where the gospel is proclaimed.

And because of that, we act as if we should have the gospel. It should be known to us.

I want to address this next one after this break. I'm Dr.

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Orlando, Florida area, that you would consider joining Dr. Danny Purvis down there for the Marriage Retreat there.

I think that would be a blessing. If I could make it, I would make it. Unfortunately, I will be in California and cannot be there.

But I want to get back to this thing that we were talking about. There are many people who grew up in a

Christian home and they act as if they somehow deserve the gospel. It's owed to them because they've heard it all their life.

They've been used to it. This is a problem that the Jews had in the Old Testament times.

We see Christ speak very harshly about this in Luke 18, verses 9 -14.

Let me read this. This is Christ's harsh words on a Pharisee. He's one who had expectations that the gospel should be owed to him.

Luke 18, 9. He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and treated others with contempt.

Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.

The Pharisee standing by himself prayed thus, God, I thank you that I am not like other people, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.

I fast twice a week. I give tithes of all that I get.

But the tax collector standing far off would not even lift his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast saying,

God, be merciful to me, a sinner. I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other.

For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.

Those are some harsh words. But you see, this is what happens to people who justify themselves, who trust themselves as being righteous.

And for many, there are many, many, many people in churches that are false converts.

They think they're saved because they grew up in a Christian home. Many of them become legalistic.

They have a list of do's and don'ts. And if you do these things, you're going to be fine. You don't do those things, you're going to be fine. God's going to bless you.

Again, that prosperity message is slipping in. But we see this in sanctification with so many people.

They have that pharisaical self -righteousness. You see this on social media big time, don't you?

Where you see people that, boy, will they rip into you. There's someone that came to after me this past week.

He claims to be a new convert but wants to argue with the fact that after last week's episode with Justin Peters, he's upset that Justin Peters won't call out

John MacArthur because some guy who doesn't even go to church has called

John MacArthur a heretic on something that he said and about the end times, about a view of the end times.

Like, okay, this is not even a primary issue. It's not even a secondary issue. It's a tertiary issue.

This is a minor thing. Oh, John MacArthur believes that people that take the mark of the beast can be saved.

Yeah, the same way he believes where it says that people who lie are going to spend eternity in a lake of fire, but all liars don't spend it there because they're saved too.

You have to read the Bible in its context, but that's such a minor issue. And it's one that's been addressed.

But here's a guy that wants to make a big deal of it. He's basically saying, no, if you don't accept this, like, this is the only thing you should be doing.

And I'm going, well, okay, you got your information from the source of a guy who refuses to go to church, who acts very effeminate and refuses to see that anyone could be wrong but him or that he could ever be wrong.

Sorry. He believes that there's a connection with everybody where he'll say, oh, well, John MacArthur's in sin because John MacArthur's friend has been friends with and been at conferences with Piper and Piper's hangs out with TJ Jakes.

Therefore, John MacArthur's a heretic. Well, by that logic, this same guy, Joshua, must also be in the same boat because he claims the same thing with Phil Johnson.

I've hung out with Phil Johnson. I've preached at conferences with Phil Johnson. I've met John MacArthur and I've gone to dinner with Joshua.

So I guess by the same definition, Joshua is a heretic. You see, there's people who get into this legalism.

They grow up in a Christian home, but either they don't know Christ and some I don't think do.

The others, it's that they don't really think about what the gospel message is, what this imputation means.

And they start to think that they deserve the gospel and that they can say what they want because they're saved and they think that they deserve that salvation.

Well, let me tell you something. None of us deserve salvation. We are rotten, wicked people.

We're enemies of God. And as Paul said, while we were still enemies of his, he died for us.

That should blow our minds. I mean, that is the good news.

And so few people want to think about that. They want to think, well, I deserve this. Like God, you know, I grew up in a Christian home.

I'm all good. Okay. I didn't grow up in a Christian home. I grew up in a home thinking that Jesus Christ is

Hitler's God. I hated Jesus. So yes, it might have been a more radical transformation for me, but I also grew up thinking

I was automatically going to heaven because I was God's chosen people. So I had to have a change of thinking in that.

And we must have that. Now there is a third way that I think we slip this prosperity gospel into our sanctification, not just in the fact that we end up thinking that we need to make up for wrongs that we've done to punish ourselves.

Like it's almost like a penance that we think we have to do. And it's not just those who think they deserve it, but there's a third way that I want to discuss, and it's those who think they're not good enough for Christ.

They just don't think that they'll ever be good enough. Let's address that one right after this break.

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Hey, I'm Darrell and I'm here with my wife, Karen. What's up? And we're the hosts of the What Are We Even Doing Here podcast.

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All right. So I think that as we look at these things, we have to recognize the fact that we must recognize what the gospel message is.

Because often there's many of us who have sinned grievous, grievous things.

And we think as if the gospel's not enough. Yes, God may have saved us, but we're never going to be good enough for God.

There's many people, many Christians I've counseled, who act and believe that they could not be deserving of God's blessing, even though He saved them,

He gave them eternal life. But then they'll act as if somehow they're really, they're just not deserving of it.

This is, I think, a most dangerous one because what this does to the Christian's life is spiral them downward to avoid the very things they need.

You know, in the first case that we mentioned where someone is having this slipping in of the prosperity gospel and sanctification in the area where it's acting like a penance, they have to make up for wrongs and do right to get blessings.

That ends up making everything about my performance and doing things.

The second one is all about me thinking I deserve this, which leads to a pride that makes me think that, well,

I'm good and therefore I don't need to grow and to mature and to be sanctified.

But this third one actually stunts the sanctification process because what it does is it causes a person to have a pity party for themselves, to sit and wallow in their own sin.

And instead of doing the things they need to get out of this mess, like go to church, read their

Bible, pray, spend time fellowshipping with believers, focus on the things of God.

No, what you end up seeing is they end up getting into a spiral where they start to avoid the very things that will help them in their

Christian walk because they convince themselves they're not good enough. Now think about that.

The King of Kings, the Lord of Lords, the creator of the universe has come to earth for the explicit purpose of becoming a man so that he could die in your place to be your, to be sin on that cross, to offer you the righteousness of God, to reconcile you back to himself, that you would be reconciled with God.

And you think that your sin somehow is so bad it can't be forgiven.

That's insanity to think about when you think of it, really. Because all of our sin was paid for at that cross, all of it.

There's no sin you ever committed. For those of us who are alive today, there is no sin we ever committed that was pre -cross.

Every sin was after the cross. Even the ones we haven't committed yet are still future to the cross.

And all of our sin was paid when? Back at the cross. There is no sin that you should be harping on and saying,

God cannot forgive me of this because it was all paid at the cross when the

Lord of Lords died on the cross. This is the thing that I think so many

Christians are being stunted in their sanctification. So many Christians are not reaching where God would desire them to be because of one of these three areas where they have allowed the prosperity gospel to slip into their sanctification and affect the way they live their life.

What would God have for you? Well, he would have for you to be like Paul, having that desire that the foremost thought of our minds would be

Christ. That as he said earlier, we saw that it's the surpassing riches of Christ that he wants to go for.

Put all these other things away. He says in 2nd

Corinthians chapter 5 verse 11, therefore, knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade others.

But what we are is known to God.

I hope it is known to your conscience. You see, everything we are is already known to God.

And what should that do? Well, in verse 14 of that same verse passage, for the love of Christ controls us because we have concluded this.

That one died for all, therefore all have died. And he died for all that those who might live or those who live might no longer live for themselves, but for him who for their sake died and was raised.

Brothers and sisters, that's what we should be doing. We should be living for his sake. Not to try to earn something from God in our performance.

Not because we think we deserve the gospel because we've heard it so often. Or we follow a bunch of rules of do's and don'ts.

And when there's no sin, absolutely no sin that can't be forgiven. Because Christ is that great.

He paid that. And we shouldn't be living for ourselves. The problem with all three of these, when we look at the imputation and what it means in our sanctification, how we live it out, what these are is living for self.

And we need to put aside living for self. Stop living in this form of shame, of self -denial, of saying that we can't be good enough because that's actually a self -righteousness.

No, put those things away and live for Christ. That's what we do.

And so I think that the gospel is clearly defined in the doctrine of imputation.

But if you don't have that right, and you don't think about that and meditate upon that, I think we end up having problems in our sanctification.

And I don't want anyone having problems in their sanctification. So think about these things.

Because I think it will be helpful to each of us to keep reminding ourselves of this.

This is what the gospel is. For our sake,

He made Him to be sin, who knew no sin, so that we might become the righteousness of God.

That's the doctrine of imputation in one verse. May that be what motivates your living. Now before we end out,

I want to give you guys some updates. I will be traveling quite a bit actually.

I was thinking I was going to have a lull in the year. By the way, God's Providence, wow! Typically the summer from June until October, I am traveling almost every week.

And this year, it wasn't very much. I was free for most of July and much of August.

In September, I was home quite a bit. And I was very busy in the first four months of the year.

Extremely busy. But God's Providence, He knew that I was going to have some health issues.

And I needed to be home. And by His Providence, I will be in for a medical procedure

September 21st. That's one week from the time you're listening, if you listen to it when it drops.

So I ask, I covet your prayers. That everything would go well and this procedure would take care of the issues that I'm having.

And that I would be able to make the trips that I have. I will be in California in October.

I'll be doing some open air evangelism with Ray Comfort. I'll be doing some filming there at Living Waters on the 14th of October.

And then I'll be enjoying some time with my bride at the Truth Matters conference.

I'll be leaving Truth Matters and going up to Redwood City, California. If you're up in the San Francisco, San Jose, Redwood City area,

I will be preaching up there. And that's always a great time to be able to, just to be able to be back at that church.

That, you know, there is just an appreciation I guess I have when you go to the same church year after year and get to see some of the folks.

But this is Grace Bible Church of Redwood City. And so if you're anywhere in that area and can make it to Grace Bible Church in Redwood City, I will be preaching the morning message there on October 20th.

Then I come home. I'll be preaching at the Master's Church. This is a church plant in Richboro, Pennsylvania.

It's kind of the eastern side of Pennsylvania. So if you're anywhere out there, I will be out at Richburg. Richburg is, it's like Newtown area.

We meet at a senior citizen center and I will be preaching there on the 27th.

Following that I will be, I'm scheduled to preach in Howell, New Jersey at Emanuel Bible Church.

That will be November 3rd. Then I head out to Kentucky, November 8th to the 10th.

And I will be out there to do a Bible Interpretation Made Easy seminar. The following weekend, actually from the 14th of November to the 17th,

Dr. Anthony Silvestro and I will be in North Carolina to do a revival meeting.

And so we're looking forward to that. And then Thanksgiving. I'll be looking forward to having some Thanksgiving time of rest after that.

So it's going to be a busy year for us and you can help us get to these different places.

I've mentioned this before, but our largest donor is going to be retiring. And a third of the budget at Striving for Eternity, which pays for us to be able to travel to all these places, is going to be gone.

We need a hundred donors. A hundred new donors. That's what we're looking for. A hundred new donors if you could help us out.

If we get a hundred donors at $25 each, that would cover the fact that we have this gentleman retiring and not being able to donate anymore.

And we have gotten some, but we need more. All that travel costs. It allows us to get the gospel, to get biblical teaching into these different places, and we need your help to get there.

One last thing to let you know before closing out is the fact that if you are interested in going to Israel with us, we're going to have the guys at Striving for Eternity, Dr.

Anthony Svestro, Pastor Frank Mullis, and myself. We'll be teaching along with Justin Peters. We're going to be providing the devotions and teaching.

We're going to Israel for 13 days. It is in 2021,

March of 2021. March 6th is when we leave. We leave from New York. Yes, the cost is expensive, but it covers all of your hotels, your flight from the

JFK. It covers your breakfast and dinner, the bus driver, the bus, the guide, because we have to have a guide from Israel.

So we have all that covered. And the fact is, is if you can't fly out of JFK, you can get,

I think it's $1 ,000 off and meet us there in Tel Aviv, I think it is. But you meet us in Israel and you pay your own flight.

But this is one of these once -in -a -lifetime opportunities. We're going to be going to more sites than most trips do because we're going to go for more days.

So if you could take two weeks off and you can afford this, this is an opportunity for you.

But I must warn you, do not wait. We have a bus that only holds 55 people, and it is already more than a quarter filled.

It's almost half filled. And we only started announcing this a few weeks ago. So this will fill up quickly.

So please go right now to 2021israeltrip .com.

That's 2021israeltrip .com. And make sure you register because you do not want to miss this.

It's going to be a lot of fun, a lot of teaching, and you're going to get to see the land of the Bible that you read about.

And I think it's going to really help you in your study of God's Word. And I hope it will help you in your sanctification as well.

Until next week, may you just strive to make today an eternal day for the glory of God.

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